Violent crime and leaded gasoline: An elemental link?

The Current

February 15, 2013

Season 2013,
Episode 300105817

27:28

For twenty years, people have been arguing over what produced a global drop in violent crime through the 1990s and early 2000s. Some thought poverty-reduction and education. Others said better policing or more jails. But now one writer says the key factor was the rise and fall of leaded gasoline. We find out why more and more researchers think the switch to unleaded gasoline was the best thing we ever did to fight violent crime.